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Life and Wii64 in 2012

Wow, 2012, who would’ve thought we’d still be updating Wii64 nearly 5 years after its inception. I won’t be the first to admit that we have been putting off updating this blog – but sadly there hasn’t been all too much to talk about. When Wii64 started, as a team, we were all just university students messing about with our new understanding on how hardware works. Fast forward 5 years, we have mortgages to pay, relationships, etc… and real life doesn’t have a time slot in the day labelled “Wii64 development” on most days/weeks/months. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still the drive to get Wii64 to a nice and polished version, but it is taking its time now due to real life really hampering down on everything.

Now that the excuses/truth are out of the way, it’s time to actually divulge the progress (or lack thereof) we’ve made.

Dynamic recompiler re-write “rec2″

Tehpola has been working out the finer/final details surrounding the design and implementation of the new recompiler core which we’ve simply labelled “rec2″. In the interim, we’ve removed the non pure interpreter out of Wii64 as it was never working nor going to be useful for us. Rec2 is actually at the point of being coded now but not in a working state obviously as there is still the current recompiler to rip out. Once coding is complete, there’s bug fixes, potential minor re-writes if the design doesn’t cover a specific use case, etc.

Rice / glN64

There have been some minor improvements to glN64, but the big addition in the next release will be Rice, which is substantially faster than glN64 and supports more ucodes. Rice still has some combiner issues that need to be ironed out. Also, Rice doesn’t currently support framebuffer textures. We’d at least like to fix the combining issues before the next release.

Miscellaneous / Optimizations

I have been keeping Wii64 up to date behind the scenes with all the various libOGC changes/advancements. I’ve also been making minor optimizations such as saving 512KB of RAM by consolidating some memory structs, adding more previously interpreted instructions to the recompiler and other small adjustments. There are also other things we’ve picked up from other emulators that should help us gain further compatibility such as Blast Corps and DK64 intro fixes.

Before you all ask, why haven’t you released partial builds with the above features? It’s simply because, due to the recompiler changes, major parts of the emulator are unstable or totally broken when compared to the last publicly released version.

Not64

In case you haven’t seen it already, Not64 is a “Experimental Modification” of Wii64 v1.1 by Extrems over at GC-Forever. It attempts to gain performance by doing some GC/Wii specific hardware optimizations as well as integrating patches from various mupen64plus sources. It is also compiled with the latest libOGC/etc so you will have better device (USB amongst other things) support compared to the last public release of Wii64. I personally recommend it if you’re looking for something newer than Wii64 1.1 to hold you over until the next official release.

332 thoughts on “Life and Wii64 in 2012”

Wow! I can’t believe you guys are still working on it. I remember fondly those days a few years ago waiting eagerly for your new releases. I only found out about your post because I have your feed in my reader.
I’m glad to hear you guys are still motivated in working on the emulator and look forward to any releases you may post in the future. As a family man, I can relate to your lack of time to pursue these interests.

Thanks for your sharing your thoughts and your progress on the emulator and best regards to you all.

(Sorry for my English)-
I´m glad to see you uptated your blog, I have been visiting this website everyday looking for updates!!! I understand that real life might stop projects (that maybe aren´t priorities today…) but I see that even with those real life problems, you guys keep on working… so thank you guys!!! I can´t wait to play these old games (i mean a better emulation and Rareware games) and bring my childhood memories!!!
Thank you very much, I hope it´s done soon!!!
Greetings from Mexico.

“Wow, 2012, who would’ve thought we’d still be updating Wii64 nearly 5 years after its inception.”
Lol, except you AREN’T updating it. :p

Sorry, couldn’t help it. I’m glad to see that this project is semi-alive. Have you thought about just releasing the stable features in a new release now, then adding the rest once/if you get the bugs fixed in the other features?

hey emukidd don’t be discourage by comments of unappreciativeness do whatever is necessary to finish. I appreciate you and your whole team, I see this as a big sacrifice on your part to make this happen. I believe you guys are doing your best so don’t stop

Since you guys own this site, could you please make it so that I’ll receive emails when you post updates? That way I won’t have to keep coming back here periodically. It’ll also cut down on dissenting comments.

WOW an update.
I was just sarcastically looking up crap on the internet, and thought i would update some things… Then thought “i’ll do the usually check for updates of sites too” doom 4 – nothing, new zelda game – nothing – emulatemii… NO WAY!

Sure, it was really nothing, but isn’t it nice to get updated on whats happening, even if nothing is happening?

Personally i’d be happy even if you told us monthly that you haven’t done anything.

Hey, nice to hear from you guys. Back when you first started was when i began my interest in computers, converted to linux and hacked my wii. i was just a 17 year old apprentice diesel mechanic. i’ve since completed my apprenticeship and decided to start studying mechanical engineering at uni.
i guess, what im saying is you guys were part of the inspiration for my learning and i have since done few programming eourses and such.
Thanks guys, really appreciate it

[quote]
and real life doesn’t have a time slot in the day labelled “Wii64 development” on most days/weeks/months. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still the drive to get Wii64 to a nice and polished version, but it is taking its time now due to real life really hampering down on everything.
[/quote]

Then make your ‘private repo’ ‘public’ so others can get the job done, OKthnx. It’s all well and good saying ‘we have moved on, blablabla’ – it’s another thing to pretend you are an open source outfit when you really aren’t and deny others the right to keep continuing to develop public domain sotware when you guys clearly aren’t willing to do the heavy duty work anymore.

I see this a lot in these ‘underground console scenes’ – preach open source but yet keep either the repo private or keep the source closed.

Yeah, you tell ‘em! I’m sick of the whole situation myself, so we wait a year for a long-awaited update only to have them s**t on us with an update that isn’t really an update. Talk about a major letdown.

actually, the only person i see constantly shitting on emu authors, everywhere i go on the internet, is YOU

really, people, you do not desserve good things, please have some respect for other people life, nobody is telling you what you should do with your own life and that you should maybe do something more useful than waiting every day for a n64 emulator update, so please give them a break

I bet anything Not64 will surpass Wii64 in a few months in terms of stability, compatibility and overall progress. If they don’t have time to update the emulator, then how the bloody hell did they manage to update the front page?

I admit it, I’ve been driven to the point of wanting to give up on Wii64 and WiiSX, especially with the advent of Wii U and the team’s refusal to release an UPDATED source code as open source. Closed-source, where have I heard that, oh, I know! Project 64! Up until recently, it was closed, but thanks to some people, version 1.6 is public ever since PJ64 was killed off. Yeah, that’s right, Wii64/WiiSX is a sick old person on life support wanting to be euthanized.

at least you guys have some sort of emu…us ps3 users relied on them are still with nothing at all. nothing.
just be happy you have something i guess while a more advanced and capable system is still kinda trailing you guys. we have to wait for certain emulators to work on your wii before we get it. i’m still waiting on cd audio support for sega cd so i can play sonic cd the way it was intended.

that’s what i said. we have to have to wait for the emu to work on your wii before ps3.
libretro is great, i just wish there was more dedicated teams to unlocking the potential of the ps3 instead of starting at the bottom and working up.

Look, these guys put in a whole lot of work to make any 64 emu possible on wii, if it weren’t for them nobody would have had any N64 on wii, so leave them alone and stop complaining about updates, if you want a new version make it from scratch your self.
If they still want to make it great, but if they don’t have time, thanks for the hard work and giving us n64 emulation on wii.

You stated that in the past, you only worked on Wii64 when you felt like it, and now you just don’t have time anymore. It’s fine if you only work on it when you want to, but if you had been more dedicated back then, you could’ve had this thing done a long time ago. I say this not as a complaint (because Wii64 doesn’t belong to us), but as a statement of fact.

“if you have worked more on it before, you could have it done sooner”
thank you captain obvious
do you realize how stupid what you are saying is ? they didn’t worked more on it before because their spare time was ALREADY limited, just that now it’s even more limited because life changes.
some people seem to spend their time on message boards rambling about what other people should do, how they should do it, when they should do it, etc…. without doing ANYTHING useful to community themselves ! see how pathetics you are ?

Alan I appreciate you (and some others) being a voice of reason on this whole thing. Apart from the obvious, “They don’t owe us anything,” aspect of the whole situation I think people don’t take into account the technical difficulty of what they are attempting to do with some pretty limited hardware specs.

I’m a software developer and it’s always funny when people ask, “Well, couldn’t you just do X and Y,” like I should be able to whip it out in an hour or two when in reality what they’re asking for is aking to making cars fly or just “knowing” what you want for lunch, where you’re going to go eat it, and have it ordered and prepared for just when you arrive with no thought or effort on your part.

The whole project is pretty amazing and to be honest I miss the technical updates about things like the dynarec more than I miss updates to the application itself. Even so, if they’ve got wives and kids to worry about it shouldn’t surprise anyone that their priorities have changed. As a father of 3 I would hope they would change! Congrats to you guys (devs on this project) for knowing how to balance your life and be there for your family.

This post contributed basically nothing to the conversation, but I certain feel better about life. [-8

Thanks Wii64 team for the cool project. It’s been fun to follow and if you release any updates I’ll try and keep up on it.

They made it sound like (in the beginning) they only worked on it if they felt like it, which is fine; again, I would like to reiterate that that was not a complaint. I’ll be happy just to have Wii64. And I didn’t say “sooner”, I said “a long time ago”.

We can’t complain, though – it’s not like they’re gaining anything from us by doing this! I mean, seriously… You’re just making they feel disgusted with the classic “These buncha guys want us to do shit for them for FREE”, I know, I’m not happy that there’s been no updates for almost half a freaking decade now, but still you can’t complain.

Wow. I did not realize there were this many spoiled brats. Everything is “Now, Now, Now” and “Me, Me, Me.” Get a life people. If you want it bad enough then learn how to do it yourself. Otherwise shut up and be thankful for the releases of Wii64 and WiiSX that we already have, which last I checked is still pretty good for not having a price tag. This message isn’t pointed at everybody, just the ones complaining that they have been waiting too long for a free product.

Glad to see that work is continuing on Wii64. It’s a shame so many people are griping about the lack of updates, but I suppose the next release will be noticeably better.

I have a question though, if anyone’s interested in answering. I know that you can run Linux on Wii. I also know that there’s a Linux n64 emulator. What, if any, would the results be if you ran a game on the emulator through linux through the wii?

I have homebrew in my wii. pimp my wii download all the cios to work all emulates and games. I play wii64 1.1 in it but only not64 didn’t work! when I launch it say: this is not an aplication for wii. Works only in gamecube?

then get your hands out of your… keyboard and start coding since it’s so easy.

i just love when people have nothing else to offer but complaints and seems to think coding or releasing homebrew is a given thing or some kind of human right they desserve.

sometimes i think people like you do not even appreciate the hard work coders are doing and apps they are releasing without asking anything in return…you are basically just waiting for “new stuff” to try out in order to get some distractions in your boredom life for a few days… then wait for the next “cool thing” to come out and go whinning if there is no more toys for you to play with. A bunch of ungrateful and spoiled kids, that’s what you are.

Its just a disappointment it dosent seem it may go further. Not the end of the world. Things like family and friends are what are most important to me. Not material items like this. They have done a very nice job with what is been done already and I thank them for that.

So don’t go around verbally lashing people and acting like a righteous parent type because someone dosen’t see it your way. Relax, you can’t change people.

If I get my hands out of my keyboard, how am I going to write any code?

I wasn’t complaining, I was just stating the fact that it’s sad to see that the Wii is in its last few weeks of life and that can be seen reflected in the lack of homebrew for the Wii lately.

Was good while it lasted, and certainly made my Wii the most used console I had due to the hacks and apps.

I do know how to code, but not at the point of creating homebrew apps. I am not that advanced in programming, but I do know what it takes and I appreciate the effort and work that all the developers put in their apps.

A lot people are some of -the- whiniest bitches I have ever had the displeasure of seeing, Online or otherwise. Put simply, The Wii64 team is of -NO obligation- to even think about working on Wii64/Anything else, you should Thank whatever God you believe in that they do and They don’t even need to consider posting a Status update unless they want to. And before I even see one of you say “Well, I donated–”, You -Donated-, which means you gave up your Money to them freely and should consider yourself lucky that they continue to get any work into the Emulator at all. Most of the people Commenting that I had the patience to actually read act like the Developers owe you something, when in reality they don’t owe you jack. Stop complaining about the Lack of progress/status updates unless you can and have done a better job developing an Emulator this well. When it’s ready to be released, it will be released, be it tomorrow or in 2145 when Demon’s have taken over Mars.

You don’t. Could make a post tomorrow saying that their done with it (Pretty unlikely). If it continues, fantastic and I hope DK64 will be beatable . If not, Oh well, hope and pray they release the Source.

what emulation “community” ?
a bunch of N64 emulation fanboys that think emu developers should do whatever they want when they need it, that’s all i see

seriously, you keep posting the same shit everywhere, ranting against emu coders not updating their stuff often enough in your opinion, don’t you feel like beating a dead horse ? do you really think the more you cry, the bigger chances you have to get something ? i am no emu coder but i am pretty sure it’s the opposite and certainly is the most annoying thing with the (so called) emulation “community”

Extrems updated the version this past November 9th, and seems to give some games a little speed and some graphical updates (DK64 intro now can be seen, as well for the Rare and N64 logo like they should be seen)

Test some games and if you have the time, share the compatibility of your own in here.

PS: Castlevania and Castlevania LoD should be started in Pure Interpreter, once you enter real gameplay, change to Dynarec, that should give the game a major hi-speed and high playabilty.

I tried this with both the official Wii64 Honey Beta and the last Not64, tried with almost every DK64 rom in existence. (U, E, !, f1, f2, f3, save fix, boot&save)
With both the E and U releases, the game plays fine (that weird camera bug is still annoying), but with the others I get a code dump.

The game doesn’t save automatically nor manually, you can only do save states and this have to be done in such precise places, otherwise the save state won’t load due to the low FPS where you last saved it.

If anyone has solved this, please let me know.
I really want to play DK 64 with a working-save feature.

I believe the camera issue goes away in interpreter mode, but that kills the framerate since you’re emulating the N64 at more accurate state. That indicates there is a major bug in the Mupen64 port itself, as Hybrid Heaven has the same issue when climbing ladders, but it can be bypassed in the interpreter mode.

Those who refuse to wait any longer but still want to play n64 games on an actual console might want to look into n64 flash carts. Provided you have a n64 you’ll get close to, if not perfect emulation from them . I’m actually looking around myself for one who’s cost isn’t in the 100 USDs because it shouldn’t be worth that much.

I’ve been playing not64 and I can say. The emulate is very good. I’ve finished blast corps 100%. and banjo works very well. Donkey kong 64 still impossible to play but goldeneye is great. in my opinion in the next release this emulate will be the best of all emulates. I’m still waiting. Extrems, please help us!!!

User: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Developer: Here’s one.
User: That’ll be ninepence.
Wii64: I’m not dead.
User:What?
Developer: Nothing. There’s your ninepence.
Wii64: I’m not dead.
User: ‘Ere, he says he’s not dead.
Developer: Yes he is.
Wii64: I’m not.
User: He isn’t.
Developer: Well, he will be soon, he’s very ill.
Wii64: I’m getting better.
Developer: No you’re not, you’ll be stone dead in a moment.
User: Well, I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations.
Wii64: I don’t want to go on the cart.
Developer: Oh, don’t be such a baby.
User: I can’t take him.
Wii64: I feel fine.
Developer: Oh, do me a favor.
User: I can’t.
Developer: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won’t be long.
User: I promised I’d be at the Robinsons’. They’ve lost nine today.
Developer: Well, when’s your next round?
User: Thursday.
Wii64: I think I’ll go for a walk.
Developer: You’re not fooling anyone, you know. Isn’t there anything you could do?
Wii64: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[the User glances up and down the street furtively, then silences the Body with his a whack of his club]
Developer: Ah, thank you very much.
User: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Developer: Right.

Really.. what is there left to talk about here. Either we’re all suprised with a update at some random point in the future or….. we’re not. Wii64 currently works, somewhat. And no ones else has taken on the project themselves otherwise, so be thankful you got what you got. Sure I’d like to see Goldeneye run at fullspeed on Wii64 but thats probably not going to happen. I’m over it, I have my N64 in the other room. Go on and live life, get outta here, nothing to see.

Seeing how much time it’s taking them to release a second beta of an emulator which last update was almost 3 years ago, I doubt we might even see light on the “secret project” in which they were working.

Having hope on Wii64 Beta 2 is the only thing you can do for now, forget about the other emulators.

I’ve been playing in not64 banjo, blast corps and killer instinct gold and I can say. Works very well. Just only problems in sounds. But playable!
If wii64 1.2 will come to us all the games will work very well. Thanks for not64 20121206. Now I want not64 “20131216″ who knows!

Well I actually was able to get a 64Drive . I thought I had my old N64 but I couldn’t find it . So total with extra controllers came out to be ~$250 . Every game I’ve played works flawlessly ! It really is a good alternative to those of you waiting for Wii64 .

While we all are in a long wait for the next release of the upcoming Wii64 Beta 2, I have started to research for some texture packs for the games I care the most.

Not only have I been downloading packs, but I myself have been making some textures on my own, quite satisfied with the results.

I suggest that all of those that are waiting for the beta, should do the same in the meantime. It’s quite a good thing to burn time and you could also benefit from it once the Beta 2 with the textures options is released. =)

The wii console has power to emulate wii64 and wiisx in final version? there is wiisx for pc and wii64 too. but the version of wii is better? till psp has an emulate of nintendo 64. What’s the problem with the wii emulator? in case wii64 and wiisx…

Is it just me or has everything really gone the bad way?
I mean, none of the autors have responded to the official EmulateMii site, and emukid’s blog hasn’t been updated since the last release of Snex9xGX and FceuGx, which really makes me wonder…

What happened to them?
It looks like they just… Disappeared without any word or notice.

I’m not trying to sound like a douche or anything, but I think that if the emulator is not going to be updated in any means by now, they should just tell us.
If they are really still working on it, then they should just release Beta 2 and release the source code along with it along with a GoodBye post, since they all are nowhere to be seen by now.

Yeah, we all have lives, family, relationships, etc, but like I always say:
“Never tell about a plan or something you’ll do without the will to finish it completely”
And yeah, by that I mean both Wii64 Beta 2 AND the “secret” emulator (which I pretty much just gave hope to that one and another WiiSX beta)

Just my opinions, ideas and suggestions.
Don’t make it personal, and I’m not bitching about anything.

Just really hope the autors are doing okay with their lives and nothing serious has happened.

No, we all feel your pain. The devs have seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth, either that or they pulled a Martin Korth (the guy who developed no$gba) and disappeared only to abruptly reappear out of nowhere four years later. Seriously, they probably don’t give a damn about their fan base or about doing something nice for others, but instead they bugger off to oblivion. It’s mind-boggling.

emukidid, In this next release Will we play Conker’s bad fur day? Please, answer my question. This game is amazing! others games that I would like to play too. Goldeneye 007, Banjo 1 and 2, Donkey Kong 64 and so on… Is it impossible or I’m very, very excited?

I’ve been playing some games in not64 and saw improvements. Donkey kong 64 is a little bit better. Blast corps is playable and goldeneye is the same way. dark rift freezes in title screen and star wars too. wii64 1.2 will fixex all he problems to be sure!

Dude, just leave this site if you can’t bear it, Therese more patient people here than you and we don’t won’t you to deteriorate it with your intolerance. As I said before “let those who know how to make this make it and if you don’t like it make it yourself”.

This team has done the least to say their alive but asking for anything more would be harassment and discouragement. This is chargeless and checking only takes 30secs to a minute. ✌Peace out old timer, you’ve finally expired. Thank you…

I was playing yesterday “turok” and and it was very good the game but when I died for the first time a strange beep and gave black screen. This happens with some games too. like as Star wars, war gods and others. In Mortal kombat mithologies sub zero you didn’t see the game, just the sound game. And I am going to post here, because I have hope that one day all my favorite games will runs perfectly. Counting with you wii64 team and the extrems! Thanks a lot for the last updates!

I understand you but I don’t understand why you put:
2001, 2002, and 2003, when the Wii was released in 2006.
I bet you meant 2011, 2012, and 2013. I lost hope in this being released anytime soon but it’s worth the wait since it’s free and has grown to be so valuable. Everyday “-1hope +1day +1rarity”. Once they release this thing everyone is going to have a change of heart in 1sec…

Lol, he might really lose motivation if more people were like you, constantly complaining. But…not all of us can remain patient I suppose. I remember visiting this page every day, and you were one of the biggest opponents of the people who bitched. It’s kinda weird seeing how you’ve up and joined them. Just be patient, man! Just think of Wii64 as Duke Nukem Forever. It’ll EVENTUALLY be out.

He is coming back this month. These are his words. So, who knows a new release is possoble! By the way. The last version of Snes9x gx is 4.2.3. Is this the limit, or the emulate could improve? There are others emulaters too. FCU ultragx and genesis plus gx, Visual boy advanced. New releases for them?

What’s your problem? These are perfect time killers and all you can say is F*** off? Your absurd the_randomizer. There’s already many comments of interest and madness, why not see something different instead of the same BS of every new comment. I’m not soding off…until this updated software is released. Good day “?’z”.

Jet Force Gemini works quite fine, graphics used to looks weird, but it gets fixed when you put “FB textures” on, but if you pause the game while “FB textures” are on, it will freeze. It gets fixed when you go to Settings and turn “FB textures” off then you need to go back to the game (graphics will be weird again) and then you´ll need to go to Settings again and turn on “FB textures” on. I also noticed that when you are about to get into your spaceship, you need to turn “FB textures” off, because if it is on a black error screen will appear and you´ll need to start the game again, from the last time you saved it. I save my game turning off the FB thing so i can pause it without problems. I hope this may help!!! I´m enjoying the game as when I was a child. Sorry if my english is not good enough, I need to improve it.

Can you tell me why you dont install project 64 on your PC and connect the wiimote and nunchuck to the Emulator with Toshiba blutooth stack and Billard controller-plugin? Works really good on most games.

This project sure is taking a lot of time to come out…Years of waiting, reading assholish comments and checking regularly like twice a week. I still hope to see a new post from the devs, giving some clue on how much of it is actually done. I had to prepare the exams of high school when it started, now I am about to undergraduate.

I some-what just got here, and since my waiting, I’m about to join the military. All I can say is that the Dev’s update the site “extremely” at the most random times giving birth to a user called “the_randomizer” who torches the site with demands. Extrems’ another main character in this tale, has done wonders to make up for the Dev’s absents here. Me, I just add more energy to the fire. ~_-/\///\////\-_~

I remember how Wii 64 1.1 came out my senior year of high school . then what i started my freshman year of college i thought another version would come out at the end of the school year…nope. So I thought it would be released over the summer…nope. Thought it would be released end of sophomore year…nope. Again over the summer…nope.

So instead of complaining I took manners into my own hands.

I don’t get on here much so idk what are the new updates (I’ll have to read them) but like I’ve suggested a few months ago. You all should invest in a N64 Flash Cart for those of you who simply must play n64 games on a console. You’ll be spending around $100 if you get the cart with the shell but hey it’s worth it. Pretty much can play the entire n64 library at full speed.